


En Route to the Anderfels

by ChromeEdwardian



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: F/M, Post-Game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-06
Updated: 2015-03-06
Packaged: 2018-03-16 15:46:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3493922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChromeEdwardian/pseuds/ChromeEdwardian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Weeks after Kirkwall falls, Matilda Hawke comes to terms with the latest chapter in her life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	En Route to the Anderfels

It was not ash, but snow that was falling from the sky as two heavily-clothed figures crested the hill. It had been freezing for days, but only now had the weather decided to do something about it. Avoiding the roads, their boots crunched in the snowy grass.

"Our tracks will show," the man said.

"Not if it keeps going for a little longer," the woman said.

They joined gloved hands and kept going. The sky had been as grey as this back in Kirkwall, the day when Matilda Hawke realized her once-stable life would be uprooted yet again. The day the man by her side had ensured he would never be safe again. Matilda knew that this life they had together was really no different from what she was used to, but for a few years, she had dared to hope she was done running. 

Now, she and he were headed for his birthplace in the Anderfels. 

Being so close to the explosion of the Chantry, Matilda had been pulling ash from her hair for weeks. For a while, the man's hair had looked more silver than blond, but given everything that had happened, she suspected the silver might be there for good.

His fingers were still stained from the ink he spent writing his manifestos, those failed tracts that had done too little to make the changes he wished to see. But despite all that happened in the time she'd known him, he had kept his optimism that change could happen, that it must happen. And in spite of all the rage Matilda felt at the world and everyone in it, she had felt her heart lighten with love for him. She wouldn't be able to live without him anymore.

The manifestos were useless now. Everything they had worked for now was only fodder for the obvious repercussions. And she was running away yet again. They weren't standing up at all. Were Matilda on her own, she would have remained at the center of it. Only if to give her anger some direction. After all, it was one thing to be angry about the state of things, quite another to do something. There was so much her anger could accomplish. But she wasn't alone. It had taken the capacity of her compassion, as much as it had taken the capacity of his courage, to get where they were now.

Oh how she had cried, clinging to him those first few nights. He hadn't cried at all, having spent all of his tears this past year, leading up to the explosion. And as she had comforted him, so too he comforted her. He told her every morning that he was sorry, and every night he thanked her. She knew he expected her to run at the first opportunity, but she hadn't. Nor would she. He was all she had left, and she would not let him out of her clutches while she still breathed. Here, now, was her purpose.


End file.
